Published in the Guardian
Dundee Rep
Four stars
Butterfly or moth? Swan or duck? Angel or vampire? The
teenagers at the chilling heart of John Ajvide Lindqvist's
novel and its two film adaptations could go either way. They are at that
formative point in adolescence, before their first kiss, when they are ripe
with potential and burdened with uncertainty.
The mysterious Eli, both youthful and ageless, is magnetically
attractive yet neither male nor female. The mesmerised Oskar, eager to be
moulded, thinks he would accept this erotic creature whatever its gender.
It is this sensual, innocent, exploratory relationship that defines
John Tiffany's beguiling stage adaptation, his swansong as associate director
of the National Theatre of Scotland and a characteristically polished and
poetic piece of work. Scripted by Jack Thorne and choreographed by Steven
Hoggett, it replicates the shallow-focus Scandinavian atmosphere of Tomas
Alfredson's 2008 movie,
right down to the snowdrifts, climbing frame and Rubik's cube-era details,
while giving stronger definition to the central love story.
On a forested set illuminated by icy blue light and the cool
sodium glow of a streetlamp, a passer-by asks an old man if he wants something.
"The time," says the man before slashing the stranger's neck and
draining him of his blood.
Time, of course, is the thing this man has least of. Like
Oskar, he is besotted with Eli, but he has grown older while this vampire child
has remained eternally young, sustained on the blood he brings home. Word
spreads in the backwoods community that a serial killer is at large. Defences are
up, but for the bullied and lonely Oskar, Eli's arrival offers not a threat,
but the hope of new life. How long before he ends up like the sad old man?
Sustaining the story's twisted erotic charge, Martin Quinn
and Rebecca Benson give superb performances in the central roles. Quinn has all
the awkward physicality of adolescence; half-boy, half-man and not quite
either, his every sentence is a tentative experiment to find the right thing to
say. Benson brings an eerie detachment and a taut muscularity, a creature
trying earnestly to be human but remaining at one remove. It should be funny
that she is wearing a T-shirt emblazoned
with blood-and-gore rock band Kiss,
but you sense the irony would be lost on her. She will always be curious,
always strange, always other.
The production makes light work of the original's seemingly
unstagable aspects, as Hoggett's Black Watch-style choreography
stylises the violence, building to the supernatural force of Eli's final
massacre, accompanied by a literally breathtaking under-water swimming-pool
sequence.
©Mark Fisher
Until 29 June (01382 223530). Details: www.dundeerep.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment